End of an era: Hillary Clinton announces she's "done with being a candidate"

She is not running.

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September 10, 2017 4:01PM (UTC)

On CBS "Sunday Morning" Hillary Clinton revealed that she is "done with being a candidate.” The former presidential contender said her reign as a politician has ended, but that doesn't mean she will stand idly by on the sidelines.

“I am not done with politics," she said in an interview with Jane Pauley on Sunday. "Because I literally believe that our country’s future is at stake.”

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Clinton suggested she understood the gravity of her election loss last November, saying that President Donald Trump presented an existential danger to American democracy.

“We have a reality show that leads to the election of a president. He ends up in the Oval Office. He says, ‘Boy, it’s so much harder than I thought it would be. This is really tough. I had no idea,’” Clinton said. “Well, yeah, because it’s not a show. It’s real. It’s reality, for sure.”

One of the most persistent politicians in U.S. history, there was and perhaps always will be questions surrounding Clinton's political aspirations. But the 69-year-old grandmother insisted that her run was over.

Clinton indicated that she was O.K. and there was no need to worry about her state of being.

“I am good,” Clinton said. “But that doesn’t mean I am complacent or resolved about what happened. It still is very painful. It hurts a lot.”

The future of the Democratic Party is officially up in the air. Over 20 prominent Democrats have hinted an interest in running in the 2020 presidential elections. It will be the first presidential election in over a decade that will not feature Clinton as a candidate.

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Taylor Link

Taylor Link is an assistant editor at Salon. You can find him on Twitter at @taylorlink_